30 Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad 1912–1916

American enterprise is not free; the man with only a little capital is finding it harder and harder to get into the field, more and more impossible to compete with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this country do not prevent the strong from crushing the weak.

WOODROW WILSON, THE NEW FREEDOM, 1913

ffice-hungry Democrats—the “outs” since nose, but to their surprise, Wilson waged a passion- O1897—were jubilant over the disruptive Repub- ate reform campaign in which he assailed the lican brawl at the convention in Chicago. If they “predatory” trusts and promised to return state gov- could come up with an outstanding reformist ernment to the people. Riding the crest of the pro- leader, they had an excellent chance to win the gressive wave, the “Schoolmaster in Politics” was White House. Such a leader appeared in Dr. swept into office. , once a mild conservative but now Once in the governor’s chair, Wilson drove a militant progressive. Beginning professional life as through the legislature a sheaf of forward-looking a brilliant academic lecturer on government, he had measures that made reactionary New Jersey one of risen in 1902 to the presidency of Princeton Univer- the more liberal states. Filled with righteous indig- sity, where he had achieved some sweeping educa- nation, Wilson revealed irresistible reforming zeal, tional reforms. burning eloquence, superb powers of leadership, Wilson entered politics in 1910 when New Jer- and a refreshing habit of appealing over the heads of sey bosses, needing a respectable “front” candidate the scheming bosses to the sovereign people. Now a for the governorship, offered him the nomination. figure of national eminence, Wilson was being They expected to lead the academic novice by the widely mentioned for the presidency.

687 688 CHAPTER 30 Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad, 1912–1916

The “Bull Moose” Campaign I want to be a Bull Moose, of 1912 And with the Bull Moose stand With antlers on my forehead And a Big Stick in my hand. When the Democrats met at Baltimore in 1912, Wil- son was nominated on the forty-sixth ballot, aided Roosevelt and Taft were bound to slit each by William Jennings Bryan’s switch to his side. The other’s political throats; by dividing the Republican Democrats gave Wilson a strong progressive plat- vote, they virtually guaranteed a Democratic victory. form to run on; dubbed the “New Freedom” pro- The two antagonists tore into each other as only for- gram, it included calls for stronger antitrust mer friends can. “Death alone can take me out legislation, banking reform, and tariff reductions. now,” cried the once-jovial Taft, as he branded Roo- Surging events had meanwhile been thrusting sevelt a “dangerous egotist” and a “demagogue.” Roosevelt to the fore as a candidate for the presi- Roosevelt, fighting mad, assailed Taft as a “fathead” dency on a third-party Progressive Republican with the brain of a “guinea pig.” ticket. The fighting ex-cowboy, angered by his recent Beyond the clashing personalities, the overshad- rebuff, was eager to lead the charge. A pro-Roosevelt owing question of the 1912 campaign was which of Progressive convention, with about two thousand two varieties of progressivism would prevail—Roo- delegates from forty states, assembled in Chicago sevelt’s New Nationalism or Wilson’s New Freedom. during August 1912. Dramatically symbolizing the Both men favored a more active government role in rising political status of women, as well as Pro- economic and social affairs, but they disagreed gressive support for the cause of social justice, sharply over specific strategies. Roosevelt preached settlement-house pioneer Jane Addams placed the theories spun out by the progressive thinker Her- Roosevelt’s name in nomination for the presidency. bert Croly in his book The Promise of American Life Roosevelt was applauded tumultuously as he cried (1910). Croly and TR both favored continued consol- in a vehement speech, “We stand at Armageddon, idation of trusts and labor unions, paralleled by the and we battle for the Lord!” The hosanna spirit of a growth of powerful regulatory agencies in Washing- religious revival meeting suffused the convention, ton. Roosevelt and his “bull moosers” also cam- as the hoarse delegates sang “Onward Christian Sol- paigned for woman suffrage and a broad program of diers” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” William social welfare, including minimum-wage laws and Allen White, the caustic Kansas journalist, later “socialistic” social insurance. Clearly, the bull moose wrote, “Roosevelt bit me and I went mad.” Progressives looked forward to the kind of activist Fired-up Progressives entered the campaign welfare state that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal with righteousness and enthusiasm. Roosevelt would one day make a reality. boasted that he felt “as strong as a bull moose,” and Wilson’s New Freedom, by contrast, favored the bull moose took its place with the donkey and small enterprise, entrepreneurship, and the free the elephant in the American political zoo. As one functioning of unregulated and unmonopolized poet whimsically put it, markets. The Democrats shunned social-welfare Roosevelt Versus Wilson 689 proposals and pinned their economic faith on com- Wilson and Roosevelt exceeded the tally of the more petition—on the “man on the make,” as Wilson put conservative Taft. To the progressive tally must be it. The keynote of Wilson’s campaign was not regula- added some support for the Socialist candidate, per- tion but fragmentation of the big industrial com- sistent Eugene V. Debs, who rolled up 900,672 votes, bines, chiefly by means of vigorous enforcement of or more than twice as many as he had netted four the antitrust laws. The election of 1912 thus offered years earlier. Starry-eyed Socialists dreamed of being the voters a choice not merely of policies but of in the White House within eight years. political and economic philosophies—a rarity in Roosevelt’s lone-wolf course was tragic both for U.S. history. himself and for his former Republican associates. The heat of the campaign cooled a bit when, in Perhaps, to rephrase William Allen White, he had Milwaukee, Roosevelt was shot in the chest by a bitten himself and gone mad. The Progressive party, fanatic. The Rough Rider suspended active cam- which was primarily a one-man show, had no future paigning for more than two weeks after delivering, because it had elected few candidates to state and with bull moose gameness and a bloody shirt, his local offices; the Socialists, in contrast, elected more scheduled speech. than a thousand. Without patronage plums to hand out to the faithful workers, death by slow starvation was inevitable for the upstart party. Yet the Progres- Woodrow Wilson: sives made a tremendous showing for a hastily A Minority President organized third party and helped spur the enact- ment of many of their pet reforms by the Wilsonian Democrats. Former professor Wilson won handily, with 435 As for the Republicans, they were thrust into electoral votes and 6,296,547 popular votes. The unaccustomed minority status in Congress for the “third-party” candidate, Roosevelt, finished second, next six years and were frozen out of the White receiving 88 electoral votes and 4,118,571 popular House for eight years. Taft himself had a fruitful old votes. Taft won only 8 electoral votes and 3,486,720 age. He taught law for eight pleasant years at Yale popular votes (see the map on p. 690). University and in 1921 became chief justice of the The election figures are fascinating. Wilson, with Supreme Court—a job for which he was far more only 41 percent of the popular vote, was clearly a happily suited than the presidency. minority president, though his party won a majority in Congress. His popular total was actually smaller than Bryan had amassed in any of his three defeats, Wilson: The Idealist in Politics despite the increase in population. Taft and Roo- sevelt together polled over 1.25 million more votes than the Democrats. Progressivism rather than Wil- (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson, the second Democratic son was the runaway winner. Although the Demo- president since 1861, looked like the ascetic intel- cratic total obviously included many conservatives lectual he was, with his clean-cut features, pinched- in the solid South, the combined progressive vote for on eyeglasses, and trim figure. Born in Virginia

The Presidential Vote, 1912

Electoral Approximate Candidate Party Vote Popular Vote Percentage

Woodrow Wilson Democratic 435 6,296,547 41% Theodore Roosevelt Progressive 88 4,118,571 27 William H. Taft Republican 8 3,486,720 23 Eugene V. Debs Socialist — 900,672 6 E. W. Chafin Prohibition — 206,275 1 A. E. Reimer Socialist-Labor — 28,750 0.2 690 CHAPTER 30 Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad, 1912–1916

WASH. ME. 7 6 MONTANA VT. N.D. N.H. 4 MINN. 4 5 4 MASS. ORE. 12 N.Y. 18 5 IDAHO S.D. WISC. 45 MICH. R.I. 5 4 WYO. 5 13 15 PA. CONN. 7 3 IOWA 38 N.J. 14 NEBR. 13 OHIO NEV. 8 ILL. IND. 24 DEL. 3 W. VA. 3 UTAH 29 15 VA. MD. 8 COLO. 8 4 MO. KY. 12 CALIF. 6 KANSAS Presidential Election of 1912 18 13 11 10 N.C. (with electoral vote by state) (+2 Dem.) TENN. 12 12 The Republican split surely boosted OKLA. S.C. ARIZ. 10 ARK. 3 N.M. 9 ALA. 9 Wilson to victory, as he failed to win 3 MISS. 12 GA. a clear majority in any state outside 10 14 TEXAS LA. the old Confederacy. The election 20 10 gave the Democrats solid control Wilson—Democratic FLA. 6 of the White House and both Roosevelt—Progressive houses of Congress for the Taft—Republican first time since the Civil War.

shortly before the Civil War and reared in Georgia like a kind of prime minister, got out in front and and the Carolinas, the professor-politician was the provided leadership. He enjoyed dramatic success, first man from one of the seceded southern states to both as governor and as president, in appealing over reach the White House since Zachary Taylor, sixty- the heads of legislators to the sovereign people. four years earlier. Splendid though Wilson’s intellectual equip- The impact of Dixieland on young “Tommy” ment was, he suffered from serious defects of per- Wilson was profound. He sympathized with the sonality. Though jovial and witty in private, he could Confederacy’s gallant attempt to win its independ- be cold and standoffish in public. Incapable of ence, a sentiment that partly inspired his ideal of unbending and acting the showman, like “Teddy” self-determination for people of other countries. Roosevelt, he lacked the common touch. He loved Steeped in the traditions of Jeffersonian democracy, humanity in the mass rather than the individual in he shared Jefferson’s faith in the masses—if they person. His academic background caused him to were properly informed. feel most at home with scholars, although he had to Son of a Presbyterian minister, Wilson was work with politicians. An austere and somewhat reared in an atmosphere of fervent piety. He later arrogant intellectual, he looked down his nose used the presidential pulpit to preach his inspira- through pince-nez glasses upon lesser minds, tional political sermons. A moving orator, Wilson including journalists. He was especially intolerant could rise on the wings of spiritual power to soaring of stupid senators, whose “bungalow” minds made eloquence. Skillfully using a persuasive voice, he him “sick.” relied not on arm-waving but on sincerity and Wilson’s burning idealism—especially his desire moral appeal. As a lifelong student of finely chiseled to reform ever-present wickedness—drove him for- words, he turned out to be a “phraseocrat” who ward faster than lesser spirits were willing to go. His coined many noble epigrams. Someone has sense of moral righteousness was such that he often remarked that he was born halfway between the found compromise difficult; black was black, wrong Bible and the dictionary and never strayed far from was wrong, and one should never compromise with either. wrong. President Wilson’s Scottish Presbyterian A profound student of government, Wilson ancestors had passed on to him an inflexible stub- believed that the chief executive should play a bornness. When convinced that he was right, the dynamic role. He was convinced that Congress principled Wilson would break before he would could not function properly unless the president, bend, unlike the pragmatic Roosevelt. The Rise of Wilson 691

He tackled the tariff first, summoning Congress into special session in early 1913. In a precedent- shattering move, he did not send his presidential message over to the Capitol to be read loudly by a bored clerk, as had been the custom since Jefferson’s day. Instead he appeared in person before a joint session of Congress and presented his appeal with stunning eloquence and effectiveness. Moved by Wilson’s aggressive leadership, the House swiftly passed the Underwood Tariff Bill, which provided for a substantial reduction of rates. When a swarm of lobbyists descended on the Senate seeking to disembowel the bill, Wilson promptly issued a combative message to the people, urging them to hold their elected representatives in line. The tactic worked. The force of public opinion, aroused by the president’s oratory, secured late in 1913 final approval of the bill Wilson wanted. The new Underwood Tariff substantially re- duced import fees. It also was a landmark in tax leg- islation. Under authority granted by the recently ratified Sixteenth Amendment, Congress enacted a graduated income tax, beginning with a modest levy on incomes over $3,000 (then considerably higher than the average family’s income). By 1917 revenue from the income tax shot ahead of receipts from the tariff. This gap has since been vastly widened.

Wilson Battles the Bankers

A second bastion of the “triple wall of privilege” was the antiquated and inadequate banking and cur- rency system, long since outgrown by the Republic’s lusty economic expansion. The country’s financial structure, still creaking along under the Civil War National Banking Act, revealed glaring defects. Its most serious shortcoming, as exposed by the panic of 1907, was the inelasticity of the currency. Banking reserves were heavily concentrated in New York and Wilson Tackles the Tariff a handful of other large cities and could not be mobilized in times of financial stress into areas that were badly pinched. Few presidents have arrived at the White House In 1908 Congress had authorized an investiga- with a clearer program than Wilson’s or one des- tion headed by a mossback banker, Republican sen- tined to be so completely achieved. The new presi- ator Aldrich. Three years later Aldrich’s special dent called for an all-out assault on what he called commission recommended a gigantic bank with “the triple wall of privilege”: the tariff, the banks, numerous branches—in effect, a third Bank of the and the trusts. United States. 692 CHAPTER 30 Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad, 1912–1916

For their part, Democratic banking reformers Nine months and thousands of words later, heeded the findings of a House committee chaired Congress responded with the Federal Trade Com- by Congressman Arsene Pujo, which traced the ten- mission Act of 1914. The new law empowered a tacles of the “money monster” into the hidden presidentially appointed commission to turn a vaults of American banking and business. President searchlight on industries engaged in interstate com- Wilson’s confidant, progressive-minded Massachu- merce, such as the meatpackers. The commission- setts attorney Louis D. Brandeis, further fanned the ers were expected to crush monopoly at the source flames of reform with his incendiary though schol- by rooting out unfair trade practices, including arly book Other People’s Money and How the Bankers unlawful competition, false advertising, mislabel- Use It (1914). ing, adulteration, and bribery. In June 1913, in a second dramatic personal The knot of monopoly was further cut by the appearance before both houses of Congress, the Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914. It lengthened the president delivered a stirring plea for sweeping shopworn Sherman Act’s list of business practices reform of the banking system. He ringingly that were deemed objectionable, including price dis- endorsed Democratic proposals for a decentralized crimination and interlocking directorates (whereby bank in government hands, as opposed to Republi- the same individuals served as directors of suppos- can demands for a huge private bank with fifteen edly competing firms). branches. The Clayton Act also conferred long-overdue Again appealing to the sovereign people, Wilson benefits on labor. Conservative courts had unex- scored another triumph. In 1913 he signed the pectedly been ruling that trade unions fell under the epochal Act, the most important antimonopoly restraints of the Sherman Act. A clas- piece of economic legislation between the Civil War sic case involved striking hatmakers in Danbury, and the New Deal. The new Federal Reserve Board, Connecticut, who were assessed triple damages of appointed by the president, oversaw a nationwide more than $250,000, which resulted in the loss of system of twelve regional reserve districts, each with their savings and homes. The Clayton Act therefore its own central bank. Although these regional banks sought to exempt labor and agricultural organiza- were actually bankers’ banks, owned by member tions from antitrust prosecution, while explicitly financial institutions, the final authority of the legalizing strikes and peaceful picketing. Federal Reserve Board guaranteed a substantial mea- Union leader Samuel Gompers hailed the act as sure of public control. The board was also empowered the Magna Carta of labor because it legally lifted to issue paper money—“Federal Reserve Notes”— human labor out of the category of “a commodity or backed by commercial paper, such as promissory article of commerce.” But the rejoicing was prema- notes of businesspeople. Thus the amount of money ture, as conservative judges in later years continued in circulation could be swiftly increased as needed for to clip the wings of the union movement. the legitimate requirements of business. The was a red-letter achievement. It carried the nation with flying ban- ners through the financial crises of the First World Organization of Holding Companies Keep in mind that the War of 1914–1918. Without it, the Republic’s voting stock of a corporation is often only a fraction of the progress toward the modern economic age would total stock. have been seriously retarded. SUPER HOLDING COMPANY

HOLDS MORE THAN 50% OF VOTING STOCK The President Tames the Trusts HOLDING HOLDING HOLDING COMPANY A COMPANY B COMPANY C Without pausing for breath, Wilson pushed toward the last remaining rampart in the “triple wall of HOLDS MORE THAN 50% OF VOTING STOCK privilege”—the trusts. Early in 1914 he again went before Congress in a personal appearance that still CORP. CORP. CORP. CORP. CORP. CORP. CORP. CORP. CORP. carried drama. A B C D E F G H I Wilson’s Reforms and Foreign Policy 693

Sweaty laborers also made gains as the progres- sive wave foamed forward. Sailors, treated brutally from cat-o’-nine-tails days onward, were given relief by the La Follette Seamen’s Act of 1915. It required decent treatment and a living wage on American merchant ships. One unhappy result of this well- intentioned law was the crippling of America’s mer- chant marine, as freight rates spiraled upward with the crew’s wages. Wilson further helped the workers with the Workingmen’s Compensation Act of 1916, granting assistance to federal civil-service employees during periods of disability. In the same year, the president approved an act restricting child labor on products flowing into interstate commerce, though the stand- pat Supreme Court soon invalidated the law. Rail- road workers, numbering about 1.7 million, were not sidetracked. The Adamson Act of 1916 estab- lished an eight-hour day for all employees on trains in interstate commerce, with extra pay for overtime. Wilson earned the enmity of businesspeople and bigots but endeared himself to progressives when in 1916 he nominated for the Supreme Court the promi- nent reformer Louis D. Brandeis—the first Jew to be called to the high bench. Yet even Wilson’s progres- sivism had its limits, and it clearly stopped short of better treatment for blacks. The southern-bred Wil- son actually presided over accelerated segregation in the federal bureaucracy. When a delegation of black leaders personally protested to him, the schoolmas- terish president virtually froze them out of his office. Despite these limitations, Wilson knew that to Wilsonian Progressivism at High Tide be reelected in 1916, he needed to identify himself clearly as the candidate of progressivism. He appeased businesspeople by making conservative Energetically scaling the “triple wall of privilege,” appointments to the Federal Reserve Board and the Woodrow Wilson had treated the nation to a daz- Federal Trade Commission, but he devoted most of zling demonstration of vigorous presidential leader- his energies to cultivating progressive support. Wil- ship. He proved nearly irresistible in his first son’s election in 1912 had been something of a fluke, eighteen months in office. For once, a political creed owing largely to the Taft-Roosevelt split in the was matched by deed, as the progressive reformers Republican ranks. To remain in the White House, racked up victory after victory. the president would have to woo the bull moose Standing at the peak of his powers at the head of voters into the Democratic fold. the progressive forces, Wilson pressed ahead with further reforms. The of 1916 made credit available to farmers at low rates of New Directions in Foreign Policy interest—as long demanded by the Populists. The Warehouse Act of 1916 authorized loans on the security of staple crops—another Populist idea. In one important area, Wilson chose not to answer Other laws benefited rural America by providing for the trumpet call of the bull moosers. In contrast to highway construction and the establishment of Roosevelt and even Taft, Wilson recoiled from an agricultural extension work in the state colleges. aggressive foreign policy. Hating imperialism, he 694 CHAPTER 30 Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad, 1912–1916 was repelled by TR’s big stickism. Suspicious of Wall Jennings Bryan to plead with the California legisla- Street, he detested the so-called dollar diplomacy of ture to soften its stand, tensions eased somewhat. Taft. Political turmoil in Haiti soon forced Wilson to In office only a week, Wilson declared war on eat some of his anti-imperialist words. The climax of dollar diplomacy. He proclaimed that the govern- the disorders came in 1914–1915, when an outraged ment would no longer offer special support to populace literally tore to pieces the brutal Haitian American investors in Latin America and China. president. In 1915 Wilson reluctantly dispatched Shivering from this Wilsonian bucket of cold water, marines to protect American lives and property. In American bankers pulled out of the Taft-engineered 1916 he stole a page from Roosevelt’s corollary to six-nation loan to China the next day. the Monroe Doctrine and concluded a treaty with In a similarly self-denying vein, Wilson per- Haiti providing for U.S. supervision of finances and suaded Congress in early 1914 to repeal the Panama the police. In the same year, he sent the leather- Canal Tolls Act of 1912, which had exempted Ameri- necked marines to quell riots in the Dominican can coastwise shipping from tolls and thereby pro- Republic, and that debt-cursed land came under voked sharp protests from injured Britain. The the shadow of the American eagle’s wings for the president further chimed in with the anti-imperial next eight years. In 1917 Wilson purchased from song of Bryan and other Democrats when he signed Denmark the Virgin Islands, in the West Indies, the Jones Act in 1916. It granted to the Philippines tightening the grip of Uncle Sam in these shark- the boon of territorial status and promised inde- infested waters. Increasingly, the Caribbean Sea, pendence as soon as a “stable government” could with its vital approaches to the now navigable be established. That glad day came thirty years later, Panama Canal, was taking on the earmarks of a Yan- on July 4, 1946. kee preserve. Wilson also partially defused a menacing crisis with Japan in 1913. The California legislature, still seeking to rid the Golden State of Japanese settlers, Moralistic Diplomacy in Mexico prohibited them from owning land. Tokyo, under- standably irritated, lodged vigorous protests. At Fortress Corregidor, in the Philippines, American Rifle bullets whining across the southern border gunners were put on around-the-clock alert. But served as a constant reminder that all was not quiet when Wilson dispatched Secretary of State William in Mexico. For decades Mexico had been sorely The Mexican Imbroglio 695

The United States in the Caribbean United States possession This map explains why many Latin United States protectorate Americans accused the United States or quasi-protectorate of turning the Caribbean Sea into a

CUBA Yankee lake. It also suggests that Uncle

VIRGIN Sam was much less “isolationist” in his (U.S. troops, 1898–1902, DOMINICAN IS. 1906–1909, 1917–1922) Guantanamo (U.S., own backyard than he was in faraway (U.S. naval base) HAITI REPUBLIC Vera Cruz PUERTO 1917) Europe or Asia. (U.S. seizure, 1914) RICO (U.S., 1898) MEXICO BRITISH HONDURAS (U.S. troops, (U.S. troops, GUATEMALA 1924–1925) 1914–1934) HONDURAS (Financial (U.S. troops, supervision, 1916–1924) EL 1916–1941) (Financial NICARAGUA supervision, SALVADOR 1905–1941) (Canal option, 1914) (U.S. troops, 1909–1910, 1912–1925, 1926–1933) COSTA RICA (Financial supervision, PANAMA 1911–1924) VENEZUELA

(U.S acquires Canal Zone, 1903) COLOMBIA

exploited by foreign investors in oil, railroads, and declared, to determine foreign policy “in the terms mines. By 1913 American capitalists had sunk about of material interest.” a billion dollars into the underdeveloped but gener- But though he refused to intervene, Wilson also ously endowed country. refused to recognize officially the murderous gov- But if Mexico was rich, the Mexicans were poor. ernment of “that brute” Huerta, even though most Fed up with their miserable lot, they at last revolted. foreign powers acknowledged Huerta’s bloody- Their revolution took an ugly turn in 1913, when a handed regime. “I am going to teach the South conscienceless clique murdered the popular new American republics to elect good men,” the former revolutionary president and installed General Victo- professor declared. He put his munitions where his riano Huerta, an Indian, in the president’s chair. All mouth was in 1914, when he allowed American arms this chaos accelerated a massive migration of Mexi- to flow to Huerta’s principal rivals, white-bearded cans to the United States. More than a million Span- ish-speaking newcomers tramped across the southern border in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Settling mostly in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, they swung picks building highways and railroads or followed the A Republican congressman voiced complaints fruit harvests as pickers. Though often segregated in against Wilson’s Mexican policy in 1916: Spanish-speaking enclaves, they helped to create a “It is characterized by weakness, uncertainty, unique borderland culture that blended Mexican vacillation, and uncontrollable desire to and American folkways. intermeddle in Mexican affairs. He has not The revolutionary bloodshed also menaced had the courage to go into Mexico nor the American lives and property in Mexico. Cries for courage to stay out. . . . I would either go intervention burst from the lips of American jin- into Mexico and pacify the country or I would goes. Prominent among those chanting for war was keep my hands entirely out of Mexico. If we the influential chain-newspaper publisher William are too proud to fight, we should be too Randolph Hearst, whose views presumably were proud to quarrel. I would not choose colored by his ownership of a Mexican ranch larger between murderers.” than Rhode Island. Yet President Wilson stood firm against demands to step in. It was “perilous,” he 696 CHAPTER 30 Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad, 1912–1916

Just as a full-dress shooting conflict seemed inevitable, Wilson was rescued by an offer of media- tion from the ABC Powers—Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Huerta collapsed in July 1914 under pressure from within and without. He was succeeded by his archrival, Venustiano Carranza, still fiercely resent- ful of Wilson’s military meddling. The whole sorry episode did not augur well for the future of United States–Mexican relations. “Pancho” Villa, a combination of bandit and Robin Hood, had meanwhile stolen the spotlight. He emerged as the chief rival to President Carranza, whom Wilson now reluctantly supported. Challeng- ing Carranza’s authority while also punishing the gringos, Villa’s men ruthlessly hauled sixteen young American mining engineers off a train traveling through northern Mexico in January 1916 and killed them. A month later Villa and his followers, hoping to provoke a war between Wilson and Carranza, blazed across the border into Columbus, New Mex- ico, and murdered another nineteen Americans. General John J. (“Black Jack”*) Pershing, a grim- faced and ramrod-erect veteran of the Cuban and Philippine campaigns, was ordered to break up the bandit band. His hastily organized force of several thousand mounted troops penetrated deep into rugged Mexico with surprising speed. They clashed with Carranza’s forces and mauled the Villistas but missed capturing Villa himself. As the threat of war with Germany loomed larger, the invading army was withdrawn in January 1917.

Thunder Across the Sea

Europe’s powder magazine, long smoldering, blew Venustiano Carranza and the firebrand Francisco up in the summer of 1914, when the flaming pistol (“Pancho”) Villa. of a Serb patriot killed the heir to the throne of The Mexican volcano erupted at the Atlantic Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo. An outraged Vienna seaport of Tampico in April 1914, when a small party government, backed by Germany, forthwith pre- of American sailors was arrested. The Mexicans sented a stern ultimatum to neighboring Serbia. promptly released the captives and apologized, but An explosive chain reaction followed. Tiny Ser- they refused the affronted American admiral’s bia, backed by its powerful Slav neighbor Russia, demand for a salute of twenty-one guns. Wilson, refused to bend the knee sufficiently. The Russian heavy-hearted but stubbornly determined to elimi- tsar began to mobilize his ponderous war machine, nate Huerta, asked Congress for authority to use menacing Germany on the east, even as his ally, force against Mexico. Before Congress could act, Wil- son ordered the navy to seize the Mexican port of Vera Cruz. Huerta as well as Carranza hotly protested *So called from his earlier service as an officer with the crack against this high-handed Yankee maneuver. black Tenth Cavalry. War Breaks Out in Europe 697

France, confronted Germany on the west. In alarm, Both sides wooed the United States, the great the Germans struck suddenly at France through neutral in the West. The British enjoyed the boon of unoffending Belgium; their objective was to knock close cultural, linguistic, and economic ties with their ancient enemy out of action so that they would America and had the added advantage of control- have two free hands to repel Russia. Great Britain, its ling most of the transatlantic cables. Their censors coastline jeopardized by the assault on Belgium, was sheared away war stories harmful to the Allies and sucked into the conflagration on the side of France. drenched the United States with tales of German Almost overnight most of Europe was locked in bestiality. a fight to the death. On one side were arrayed the The Germans and the Austro-Hungarians Central Powers: Germany and Austria-Hungary, and counted on the natural sympathies of their trans- later Turkey and Bulgaria. On the other side were planted countrymen in America. Including persons the Allies: principally France, Britain, and Russia, with at least one foreign-born parent, people with and later Japan and Italy. blood ties to the Central Powers numbered some 11 Americans thanked God for the ocean moats million in 1914. Some of these recent immigrants ex- and self-righteously congratulated themselves on pressed noisy sympathy for the fatherland, but most having had ancestors wise enough to have aban- were simply grateful to be so distant from the fray. doned the hell pits of Europe. America felt strong, Most Americans were anti-German from the snug, smug, and secure—but not for long. outset. With his villainous upturned mustache, Kaiser Wilhelm II seemed the embodiment of arro- gant autocracy, an impression strengthened by Ger- A Precarious Neutrality many’s ruthless strike at neutral Belgium. German and Austrian agents further tarnished the image of the Central Powers in American eyes when they President Wilson’s grief at the outbreak of war was resorted to violence in American factories and compounded by the recent death of his wife. He sor- ports. When a German operative in 1915 absent- rowfully issued the routine neutrality proclamation mindedly left his briefcase on a New York elevated and called on Americans to be neutral in thought as car, its documents detailing plans for industrial sab- well as deed. But such scrupulous evenhandedness otage were quickly discovered and publicized. proved difficult. American opinion, already ill disposed, was further 698 CHAPTER 30 Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad, 1912–1916

inflamed against the kaiser and Germany. Yet the great majority of Americans earnestly hoped to stay out of the horrible war.

America Earns Blood Money

When Europe burst into flames in 1914, the United States was bogged down in a worrisome business recession. But as fate would have it, British and French war orders soon pulled American industry out of the morass of hard times and onto a peak of war-born prosperity. Part of this boom was financed by American bankers, notably the Wall Street firm of J.P. Morgan and Company, which eventually advanced to the Allies the enormous sum of $2.3 bil- lion during the period of American neutrality. The Central Powers protested bitterly against the immense trade between America and the Allies, but this traffic did not in fact violate the international neutrality laws. Germany was technically free to

Principal Foreign Elements in the United States (census of 1910; total U.S. population: 91,972,266)

Natives with Two Natives with One Foreign-Born Foreign-Born Country of Origin Foreign-Born Parents Parent Total

Central Germany 2,501,181 3,911,847 1,869,590 8,282,618 Powers{ Austria-Hungary 1,670,524 900,129 131,133 2,701,786 Great Britain 1,219,968 852,610 1,158,474 3,231,052 Allied (Ireland)* 1,352,155 2,141,577 1,010,628 4,504,360 Powers Russia 1,732,421 949,316 70,938 2,752,675 { Italy 1,343,070 695,187 60,103 2,098,360 TOTAL (for all foreign countries, including those not listed) 13,345,545 12,916,311 5,981,526 32,243,282 Percentage of total U.S. population 14.5 14.0 6.5 35.0

*Ireland was not yet independent. American Neutrality 699 trade with the United States. It was prevented from doing so not by American policy but by geography and the British navy. Trade between Germany and The Fatherland, the chief German-American America had to move across the Atlantic; but the propaganda newspaper in the United States, British controlled the sea-lanes, and they threw a cried, noose-tight blockade of mines and ships across the “We [Americans] prattle about humanity while North Sea, gateway to German ports. Over the we manufacture poisoned shrapnel and picric unavailing protests of American shippers, farmers, acid for profit. Ten thousand German widows, and manufacturers, the British began forcing Amer- ten thousand orphans, ten thousand graves ican vessels off the high seas and into their ports. bear the legend ‘Made in America.’” This harassment of American shipping proved highly effective, as trade between Germany and the United States virtually ceased. Hard-pressed Germany did not tamely consent to being starved out. In retaliation for the British meanwhile began their deadly work. In the first blockade, in February 1915 Berlin announced a sub- months of 1915, they sank about ninety ships in the marine war area around the British Isles. The sub- war zone. Then the submarine issue became acute marine was a weapon so new that existing when the British passenger liner Lusitania was torpe- international law could not be made to fit it. The old doed and sank off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915, rule that a warship must stop and board a mer- with the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 Americans. chantman could hardly apply to submarines, which The Lusitania was carrying forty-two hundred could easily be rammed or sunk if they surfaced. cases of small-arms ammunition, a fact the Ger- The cigar-shaped marauders posed a dire threat mans used to justify the sinking. But Americans to the United States—so long as Wilson insisted on were swept by a wave of shock and anger at this act maintaining America’s neutral rights. Berlin officials of “mass murder” and “piracy.” The eastern United declared that they would try not to sink neutral States, closer to the war, seethed with talk of fight- shipping, but they warned that mistakes would ing, but the rest of the country showed a strong dis- probably occur. Wilson now determined on a policy taste for hostilities. The peace-loving Wilson had no of calculated risk. He would continue to claim prof- stomach for leading a disunited nation into war. He itable neutral trading rights, while hoping that no well remembered the mistake in 1812 of his fellow high-seas incident would force his hand to grasp the Princetonian, James Madison. Instead, by a series of sword of war. Setting his peninsular jaw, he emphat- increasingly strong notes, Wilson attempted to ically warned Germany that it would be held to bring the German warlords sharply to book. Even “strict accountability” for any attacks on American this measured approach was too much for Secretary vessels or citizens. of State Bryan, who resigned rather than sign a The German submarines (known as U-boats, protestation that might spell shooting. But Wilson from the German Unterseeboot, or “undersea boat”) resolutely stood his ground. “There is such a thing,”

U.S. Exports to Belligerents, 1914–1916

1916 Figure as a Percentage of Belligerent 1914 1915 1916 1914 Figure

Britain $594,271,863 $911,794,954 $1,526,685,102 257% France 159,818,924 369,397,170 628,851,988 393 Italy* 74,235,012 184,819,688 269,246,105 363 Germany 344,794,276 28,863,354 288,899 0.08

*Italy joined the Allies in April 1915. 700 CHAPTER 30 Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad, 1912–1916

British Military Area (declared November 3, 1914) and German Submarine War Zone (declared February 4, 1915)

he declared, “as a man being too proud to fight.” This kind of talk incensed the war-thirsty Theodore Roosevelt. The Rough Rider assailed the spineless simperers who heeded the “weasel words” of the pacifistic professor in the White House. Yet Wilson, sticking to his verbal guns, made some diplomatic progress. After another British liner, the Arabic, was sunk in August 1915, with the loss of two American lives, Berlin reluctantly agreed not to sink unarmed and unresisting passenger ships without warning. son promptly accepted the German pledge, without This pledge appeared to be violated in March accepting the “string.” He thus won a temporary but 1916, when the Germans torpedoed a French pas- precarious diplomatic victory—precarious because senger steamer, the Sussex. The infuriated Wilson Germany could pull the string whenever it chose, informed the Germans that unless they renounced and the president might suddenly find himself the inhuman practice of sinking merchant ships tugged over the cliff of war. without warning, he would break diplomatic rela- tions—an almost certain prelude to war. Germany reluctantly knuckled under to Presi- Wilson Wins Reelection in 1916 dent Wilson’s Sussex ultimatum, agreeing not to sink passenger ships and merchant vessels without giv- ing warning. But the Germans attached a long string Against this ominous backdrop, the presidential to their Sussex pledge: the United States would have campaign of 1916 gathered speed. Both the bull to persuade the Allies to modify what Berlin moose Progressives and the Republicans met in regarded as their illegal blockade. This, obviously, Chicago. The Progressives uproariously renomi- was something that Washington could not do. Wil- nated Theodore Roosevelt, but the Rough Rider, The Campaign of 1916 701 who loathed Wilson and all his works, had no stom- ach for splitting the Republicans again and ensuring the reelection of his hated rival. In refusing to run, he sounded the death knell of the Progressive party. Roosevelt’s Republican admirers also clamored for “Teddy,” but the Old Guard detested the rene- gade who had ruptured the party in 1912. Instead they drafted Supreme Court justice Charles Evans Hughes, a cold intellectual who had achieved a solid liberal record when he was governor of New York. The Republican platform condemned the Demo- cratic tariff, assaults on the trusts, and Wilson’s wishy-washiness in dealing with Mexico and Germany. The thick-whiskered Hughes (“an animated feather duster”) left the bench for the campaign stump, where he was not at home. In anti-German areas of the country, he assailed Wilson for not standing up to the kaiser, whereas in isolationist areas he took a softer line. This fence-straddling operation led to the jeer, “Charles Evasive Hughes.” Hughes was further plagued by Roosevelt, who was delivering a series of skin-’em-alive speeches against “that damned Presbyterian hypocrite Wil- son.” Frothing for war, TR privately scoffed at Hughes as a “whiskered Wilson”; the only difference between the two, he said, was “a shave.” Wilson, nominated by acclamation at the Dem- ocratic convention in St. Louis, ignored Hughes on the theory that one should not try to murder a man

During the 1916 campaign, J. A. O’Leary, the head of a pro-German and pro-Irish organ- ization, sent a scorching telegram to Wilson condemning him for having been pro-British in approving war loans and ammunition traffic.Wilson shot back an answer: “Your telegram received. I would feel deeply mortified to have you or anybody like you vote for me. Since you have access to many disloyal Americans and I have not, I will ask you to convey this message to them.” President Wilson’s devastating and somewhat insulting response probably won him more votes than it lost. 702 CHAPTER 30 Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad, 1912–1916

who is committing suicide. His campaign was built York newspapers displayed huge portraits of “The on the slogan, “He Kept Us Out of War.” President-Elect—Charles Evans Hughes.” Democratic orators warned that by electing But the rest of the country turned the tide. Mid- Charles Evans Hughes, the nation would be electing westerners and westerners, attracted by Wilson’s pro- a fight—with a certain frustrated Rough Rider lead- gressive reforms and antiwar policies, flocked to the ing the charge. A Democratic advertisement appeal- polls for the president. The final result, in doubt for ing to the American workingpeople read, several days, hinged on California, which Wilson car- ried by some 3,800 votes out of about a million cast. You are Working; Wilson barely squeaked through, with a final —Not Fighting! vote of 277 to 254 in the Electoral College, and Alive and Happy; 9,127,695 to 8,533,507 in the popular column. The —Not Cannon Fodder! pro-labor Wilson received strong support from the Wilson and Peace with Honor? working class and from renegade bull moosers, or whom Republicans failed to lure back into their Hughes with Roosevelt and War? camp. Wilson had not specifically promised to keep the country out of war, but probably enough voters On election day Hughes swept the East and relied on such implicit assurances to ensure his vic- looked like a surefire winner. Wilson went to bed tory. Their hopeful expectations were soon rudely that night prepared to accept defeat, while the New shattered. Chronology 703

WASH. ME. 7 6 MONTANA N.D. VT. 4 MINN. 4 N.H. 5 4 MASS. ORE. 12 N.Y. 18 5 IDAHO S.D. WISC. 45 MICH. R.I. 5 4 WYO. 5 13 15 PA. CONN. 7 3 IOWA 38 N.J. 14 NEBR. OHIO 13 DEL. 3 NEV. 8 ILL. IND. 24 W. VA. MD. 8 3 UTAH 29 15 7 Presidential Election of 1916 COLO. VA. 12 4 MO. KY. (+1 Dem.) CALIF. 6 KANSAS (with electoral vote by state) 18 13 13 10 N.C. Wilson was so worried about being TENN. 12 12 OKLA. S.C. a lame duck president in a time of ARIZ. 10 ARK. 3 N.M. 9 ALA. 9 great international tensions that he 3 MISS. 12 GA. 10 14 drew up a plan whereby Hughes, if TEXAS LA. victorious, would be appointed 10 20 secretary of state, Wilson and the FLA. 6 vice president would resign, and Wilson—Democratic Hughes would thus succeed Hughes—Republican immediately to the presidency.

Chronology

1912 Wilson defeats Taft and Roosevelt for 1915 U.S. Marines sent to Haiti presidency 1916 Sussex ultimatum and pledge 1913 Underwood Tariff Act Workingmen’s Compensation Act Sixteenth Amendment (income tax) passed Federal Farm Loan Act Federal Reserve Act Warehouse Act Huerta takes power in Mexico Adamson Act Seventeenth Amendment (direct Pancho Villa raids New Mexico election of senators) passed Brandeis appointed to Supreme Court Jones Act 1914 Clayton Anti-Trust Act U.S. Marines sent to Dominican Republic Federal Trade Commission established Wilson defeats Hughes for presidency U.S. occupation of Vera Cruz, Mexico World War I begins in Europe 1917 United States buys Virgin Islands from Denmark 1915 La Follette Seamen’s Act Lusitania torpedoed and sunk by German U-boat 704 CHAPTER 30 Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad, 1912–1916

VARYING VIEWPOINTS

Who Were the Progressives?

ebate about progressivism has revolved mainly expertise, and organizational know-how. This “organ- Daround a question that is simple to ask but devil- izational school” of historians does not see progres- ishly difficult to answer: who were the progressives? sivism as a struggle of the “people” against the It was once taken for granted that progressive “interests,” as a confused and nostalgic campaign reformers were simply the heirs of the Jeffersonian- by status-threatened reformers, or as a conservative Jacksonian-Populist reform crusades; they were the coup d’état. The progressive movement, in this view, oppressed and downtrodden common folk who was by and large an effort to rationalize and mod- finally erupted in wrath and demanded their due. ernize many social institutions, by introducing the But in his influential Age of Reform (1955), wise and impartial hand of government regulation. Richard Hofstadter astutely challenged that view. This view has much to recommend it. Yet Progressive leaders, he argued, were not drawn from despite its widespread acceptance among histori- the ranks of society’s poor and marginalized. Rather, ans, it is an explanation that cannot adequately they were middle-class people threatened from account for the titanic political struggles of the pro- above by the emerging power of new corporate gressive era over the very reforms that the “organi- elites and from below by a restless working class. It zational school” regards as simple adjustments to was not economic deprivation, but “status anxiety,” modernity. The organizational approach also Hofstadter insisted, that prompted these people brushes over the deep philosophical differences to become reformers. Their psychological motiva- that divided progressives themselves—such as the tion, Hofstadter concluded, rendered many of their ideological chasm that separated Roosevelt’s New reform efforts quirky and ineffectual. Nationalism from Wilson’s New Freedom. Nor can By contrast, “New Left” historians, notably the organizational approach sufficiently explain Gabriel Kolko, argue that progressivism was domi- why, as demonstrated by Otis Graham in An Encore nated by established business leaders who success- for Reform, so many progressives—perhaps a fully directed “reform” to their own conservative majority—who survived into the New Deal era criti- ends. In this view government regulation (as cized that agenda for being too bureaucratic and for embodied in new agencies like the Federal Reserve laying too heavy a regulatory hand on American Board and the Federal Tariff Commission, and in society. legislation like the Meat Inspection Act) simply Recently scholars such as Robyn Muncy, Linda accomplished what two generations of private Gordon, and Theda Skocpol have stressed the role efforts had failed to accomplish: dampening cut- of women in advocating progressive reforms. Build- throat competition, stabilizing markets, and making ing the American welfare state in the early twentieth America safe for monopoly capitalism. century, they argue, was fundamentally a gendered Still other scholars, notably Robert H. Wiebe activity inspired by a “female dominion” of social and Samuel P. Hays, argue that the progressives workers and “social feminists.” Moreover, in con- were neither the psychologically or economically trast to many European countries where labor disadvantaged nor the old capitalist elite, but movements sought a welfare state to benefit the were, rather, members of a rapidly emerging, self- working class, American female reformers pro- confident social class possessed of the new tech- moted welfare programs specifically to protect niques of scientific management, technological women and children.

For further reading, see page A21 of the Appendix. For web resources, go to http://college.hmco.com.